by PJ Parrish
Osborn closed the cabinet. “If you don’t have any other questions, I have—”
“Just a few more, Mr. Osborn, and then we’ll let you get to your tennis game.”
Osborn just stood there, his eyes locked on Louis.
“Any idea where your sword went?” Louis asked.
“I don’t have to answer any questions from you,” Osborn said.
“Maybe not, but you’ll have to tell the police here if you want to make an insurance claim.”
Osborn looked at Swann and back at Louis. “Look, anybody could have come in here and taken the damn thing. The cleaning lady, the cable guy. You know how those people are. We’ve had things go missing from this house before.”
“Maybe you should put some locks on your doors,” Louis said.
“Maybe I will,” Osborn said.
The phone rang. Osborn made no move to pick it up, and after three rings, it stopped. The button stayed lit and began to blink. Osborn glanced at it, then back at Louis.
“Do you know Dickie Lyons?” Louis asked.
“Lyons? Yes, I know him. Why are you asking me about him?”
“Is he a good friend of yours?”
Osborn gave a snort of disgust. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Never more serious. Is he a good friend of yours?”
Osborn’s eyes went to Swann, still standing behind Louis. When he looked back at Louis, he was smiling.
“Dickie Lyons is a turd.”
“In what way?”
Osborn was looking at Swann again. “Maybe you can explain it, Lieutenant. Tell this young man how things are here.”
Swann was silent.
“So, you don’t have any associations with Lyons?” Louis asked. “No business deals, no little hunting trips with the boys.”
“Hunting?” Osborn shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but I’ve never had anything to do with Dickie Lyons. He’s a two-bit circus huckster who thinks he can buy his way onto the A-list.”
The phone rang again. This time, Osborn pounced on it. He grunted a few impatient words into the receiver and hung up.
“Are we done?” he said.
Louis knew there was only one strategy left. It was the pigpen philosophy: Throw shit at the wall, and see if anything sticks.
“Do you know a man named Paul Wyeth?”
Osborn shook his head.
“You have any whips?”
“Whips? No.”
“Have you ever been in Immokalee?”
“Good Lord, no. Why would I?”
“How about Clewiston? Ever tooled through there late one night?”
Osborn was quiet.
“You ever heard of Devil’s Garden?”
“I think you should leave.”
In the half-light cast by the lamp, Osborn’s eyes were shadowed, leaving only his mouth visible. Nothing. There was nothing to see.
Osborn went to the door. He jerked it open and held out his hand. “Gentlemen.”
Louis caught Swann’s eye, and they left the study. The door closed behind them.
“I’m sorry,” Swann said.
“About what?”
“I was no help.”
Louis’s head was pounding from his hangover. “Don’t worry about it, Andrew.”
They found their way back to the entrance hall and outside. Louis noticed that the silver Mercedes was gone. He wondered if the white Bentley could be the one that had been seen in Clewiston. Hell, he wondered about a lot of things right now.
As they were getting into the Mustang, the front door of the mansion opened. Osborn came out, dressed in the same clothes. Louis was tempted to ask him where his racket was, but Osborn put on his sunglasses, got into the Bentley, and drove off.
“Should we follow him?” Swann asked.
“Only if he had a machete in his hand.”
Louis got in and started the engine. He unhooked the levers so he could put the top down, thinking they could both use the fresh air. As the top whirred down, Louis glanced into the rearview mirror. Greg was coming out of the house, clutching his leather datebook and keys. He went to the blue Camry, opened the door, and paused.
He came up to Louis’s side of the car. He just stood there, face drawn, as he kept looking back at the house and then down the street.
“You got something to tell me, Greg?” Louis asked.
“I don’t know,” Greg said.
“Yes, you do.”
Greg looked over at Swann, and when his eyes came back to Louis, they were anguished.
“They had a fight last night,” he said.
“About what?”
“They’ve fought before, but it was bad last night.”
Louis stayed silent. Greg wanted to talk, it was clear.
Greg’s eyes went up to the house again. “He lied to you. He was here five years ago. You know, when all the stuff was going on with that private eye. Tucker was here. And he—”
Greg wiped a hand over his brow. “I don’t want to see the senator hurt. I just…”
“Tell us what you know, Greg.”
“He’s not a good man,” Greg said. “I’ve seen it. Five years ago, one night, I saw him push her down the stairs. She broke her arm.” He shook his head slowly. “Last night, he was yelling at her, saying she wouldn’t be where she was if it wasn’t for him. And that she’s never going to get any farther without him.”
“What do you think he meant?”
“Tucker’s always throwing it back in her face that she was nothing before he married her, that she never could have gotten elected to anything without his money, that he got her to the right people. He’s always telling her that—that he made her what she is.”
“Is that true, Greg?”
Greg shook his head. “He made her unhappy, that’s what he made her.”
Louis glanced at Swann, who looked stricken.
“Greg, I have to ask you something,” Louis said. “Did she have a lover?”
Greg had been looking back up at the house, and his eyes swung to Louis. Louis saw a mix of emotions in the young man’s face—loyalty, fear, conflict—and he knew that even if Greg Bitner knew the truth, he wouldn’t tell.
“Did you ever hear her say the name Emilio?” Louis asked. “Or Paul? Or Mark?”
“I have to go,” Greg said.
He went back to the Camry and got in, starting the engine. He pulled out and, without a look back at Louis, drove quickly away.
When they got back to Reggie’s house, Swann disappeared into a bedroom. Louis found Mel sitting at the table by the pool with a tray of coffee, toast, and Bonne Maman strawberry preserves. He was reading the Shiny Sheet with his magnifying glass and looked up as Louis sat down across from him.
Louis picked up the last piece of toast, but the jam jar was empty. “You could have left me some jelly, you know.”
“Try the cheese,” Mel said, pointing to the box of Muenster cheese.
“I told you I won’t eat that shit.”
“Just open the box, Rocky.”
With a tired sigh, Louis pulled the round box over and flipped off the lid. Inside was a big wad of bills bound by a rubber band.
“I found it this morning when I was looking for something to eat,” Mel said. “There’s twelve grand there. All in hundreds.”
“Kent said he didn’t have any money, so it must belong to Durand,” Louis said.
“And it must have come from the women,” Mel said. “So, where’d you and Andrew run off to this morning?”
Louis put the money back in the cheese box. “We went and saw Osborn,” he said.
“What did he say about the sword?”
“He didn’t know it was gone. But the guy has two machetes.”
Mel raised a brow. “Could they be a match?”
“They were sharp and clean. One looked big enough to kill a cow.”
Louis filled him in on the other questions he had asked Osborn, ending with the fa
ct that Osborn claimed he had no dealings with Dickie Lyons.
“You believe him?” Mel asked.
“To hear Osborn say it, Lyons is scum. Why would he bother with a guy like Lyons?”
Mel sat up, swinging his legs to the ground. “Maybe he looked at him as someone who could provide a service.” Mel picked up a notebook and flipped back a page. “I found Barney Lassiter today.”
“The PI?”
Mel nodded. “He’s still up in the Panhandle, but we had a long talk about the surveillance he did on Carolyn Osborn. The guy has logs of everyone who came and went at the Osborn home. Guess who shows up in his records?”
“Lyons?”
“Bingo. He says Dickie’s company was hired by the Osborns to book the entertainment for Carolyn’s election-night party five years ago. He’s got a photograph of Lyons talking to Tucker Osborn out by the pool. The photograph was taken a week before Emilio Labastide disappeared.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Like you said, Osborn probably looks at Lyons as hired help.”
“Yeah, but maybe he was hired for something else.”
Louis was quiet.
“I was thinking about what Andrew said about Carolyn Osborn and Tink Lyons having the same lover,” Mel said, flipping to a new page in his notebook. “I did some calling around this morning to find out more about them. Like Margery said, Tink’s parents died when she was in her twenties, leaving her with a small trust and an old house down here in Palm Beach. Tink rattled around in her crumbling house like one of those old Bouvier bags, until the bank managing her trust finally had to step in. She did a short stint in a psych hospital.”
Louis shook his head. “How’d she hook up with Dickie?”
“Before he got into the entertainment business, he made his first millions in construction, building places like our tsarist dacha here.” Mel gestured toward the half-built mansion beyond Reggie’s bougainvillea bushes. “Tink’s trust hired him to fix up her house. I guess he figured that while he was at it, he could fix up his reputation by marrying an heiress.”
“What about Carolyn Osborn?”
“Lassiter filled in a lot of those blanks,” Mel said. “Carolyn’s family owned orange groves and made money selling off their land to Disney back in the sixties. Carolyn got her law degree at Georgetown and did some legal work for the government. She got elected a Florida state representative in her thirties and was on the fast track, especially after she married Osborn. She won her election to the U.S. Senate pretty easily.”
Louis was quiet.
“She’s got a lot to lose,” Mel said.
Louis rose suddenly. “Why the hell would she risk it all by screwing around?”
Mel started to say something but stopped, his eyes going to the sliding glass door.
Swann was standing there. His khakis were wrinkled, his pink polo shirt stained, his jaw stubbled with whiskers. But it was his expression that worried Louis.
“You sick, Andrew?”
Swann shook his head slowly. “No. I just called my answering machine. My chief is looking for me. He wants to see me this afternoon.”
“Did he say why?” Louis asked.
Swann shook his head again. “I guess I better go home and get cleaned up.”
His eyes, red-rimmed and empty, drifted toward the ocean. Louis knew he was thinking that when he came back, he might not have a badge.
He watched Swann walk away.
And what did a cop do when he couldn’t make it even in a place like this?
Chapter Thirty
Swann waited in the hall outside Chief Hewitt’s office. He wore clean khakis, a white dress shirt, and blue blazer. But this afternoon, for the first time since his job interview six years ago, he had a bright pink visitor’s badge clipped to his lapel.
The chief’s door opened, and Hewitt poked his head out. He was a small man, with trimmed salt-and-pepper hair and a narrow mustache so perfect in its shape and color that some of the officers joked that it was fake.
“Andrew, good of you to be on time,” Hewitt said. “Come on in.”
It was the largest office in the building, designed to make a tasteful but unquestioned statement about the importance of the man who occupied it. On one side of the room was a long glass conference table set with twelve high-back chairs of blue leather. The right side belonged to Chief Hewitt. The glass and chrome was standard in this place, but Hewitt had things that were uniquely his and, Swann realized, unique to this place, such as a framed photo of Hewitt and Prince Charles and a coat-rack with an array of “emergency” clothing: fresh shirt and jacket, a ceremonial dress uniform, and a tuxedo.
The walls held an arrangement of awards and certificates and the chief’s cherished display of celebrity letters from Douglas Fairbanks Jr., astronaut Edgar Mitchell, and Jimmy Buffett, plus one of his most prized pieces, a note from Donald Trump, thanking the chief for providing security during the renovation of Mar-a-Lago.
“This situation saddens me greatly, Andrew,” Hewitt said.
Swann looked back at Hewitt. His chief was standing near his desk, his hand resting on a green personnel file. The lettering on the tab was easy to read: SWANN, ANDREW T.
“It’s unpleasant for me, too, sir,” Swann said.
Hewitt pursed his lips, nodding as if he was mulling something over, but Swann suspected he was simply stalling. With a sliver of hope that he might remain employed, Swann stayed silent and tried to look relaxed.
“We do things a little differently on this island, Andrew,” Hewitt said. “I thought you knew that.”
“I do.”
“The people here expect a higher standard of service than you might see elsewhere,” Hewitt said.
“Pardon me, sir,” Swann said, “but what could be better service than fighting to save an innocent man?”
Hewitt was quiet, his fingers dancing lightly on the file.
“Determining Mr. Kent’s guilt or innocence isn’t up to you.”
“Making sure all the facts are brought to light is my job, sir,” Swann said.
“The case is not in our jurisdiction.”
“But Mr. Kent is,” Swann said. “I couldn’t stand by and watch that jerk in the Sheriff’s Office railroad him because of what he is.”
Hewitt’s eyes were steady on his. Swann didn’t look away. Somewhere from another part of the station, Swann could hear Muzak playing. Christmas carols.
“Before you came in today, I was having second thoughts about my decision to let you go,” Hewitt said. “But given this new attitude of yours, I think this is for the best.”
“May I ask exactly why I am being fired?” Swann asked.
Hewitt stared at him, as if that had been the last question he expected.
“Did I break a specific rule, sir?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Hewitt said. “You failed to conduct yourself in a way that reflects positively on your department and your community.”
“I was trying to be a police officer,” Swann said. “I was trying to do what was right, not just what looked right.”
Hewitt’s mouth drew into a hard line. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out, Andrew. I am a great admirer of your father. Please give him my best.”
Swann looked at the wall of letters, then at the tuxedo hanging behind Hewitt.
“I need to have your keys, badge, ID, and gun,” Hewitt said. “You know the gun’s city property.”
Swann pulled out his police wallet and keys and laid them on the desk. He unhooked his holster and set it next to his badge. Hewitt gathered them up and put everything in his desk drawer. He picked up a plain white envelope.
“Your final paycheck and two weeks’ severance,” Hewitt said.
Swann accepted it. “I need to get some personal things from my office,” he said. “Do you want to call an officer in to oversee things?”
Hewitt shook his head. “Of course not,” he said. “I trust you completely.”
Swa
nn shook Hewitt’s hand and left. He went to his office. The drapes were still adjusted to where he liked them. No one had packed up his clock, his books, the picture of his dog, or the sweaters and jackets in the closet.
His in-box held a neat stack of yesterday’s paperwork. Apparently, his admin clerk had not yet been advised to send the daily logs and reports on to someone else.
Let it go. Just pack and leave.
Swann found an empty box in the hall and packed up his things. He took his certificates and Officer of the Year plaque down, hesitating only a second before tossing them into the trash. He took a few minutes to go through his Rolodex and pull out a few personal numbers he wanted to keep. As he stuffed the cards into his pocket, he looked again at the daily reports.
Screwed or not by the department, he felt it wasn’t professional to let the reports sit there. The detectives or the city attorney might need them to process a case, and if the reports sat too long, something might get misplaced.
Swann gathered them up and started toward the door, intending to return them to the clerk so she could redirect them to the right supervisor. Habit drew his eye to the activity log as he walked.
Out-of-service traffic light at South County and Royal Way.
Barking dog.
Intruder.
Swann stopped so he could read the details of the intruder call. False alarms and prowler calls were common enough, but few ever resulted in an actual person getting inside one of the businesses or homes.
Time: 1:34 A.M.
Address: 67 South Ocean Boulevard.
Reporting party: Tricia (Tink) Lyons.
Disposition: Intruder located and removed from property.
Tink Lyons?
Swann turned back and dumped the reports on the desk, looking for the separate report that would contain the details of the incident. He found it quickly. Across the top of the page was the officer’s name, Gavin Mead, plus Lyons’s address and the name and address of the intruder, Byrne Kavanagh.
Swann read on.
I, Officer Gavin Mead, responded to a call of an intruder at a residence on South Ocean Boulevard. I encountered Mr. Richard Lyons and unknown subject in the front yard. Subject was unarmed, cooperative and provided ID in the name of Byrne Kavanagh. Mr. Lyons declined to press charges and I removed the subject Kavanagh from the premises and took no further action. End report.